How to improve ARK Survival Ascended (ASA) performance
Many users struggle with ARK:SA's performance stutters, low FPS (frames per second), and graphical glitches. ASA is a STILL a highly unoptimized game, as even high-end hardware often isn’t able to achieve a smooth 60 FPS or even a stable 30 FPS. Unfortunately, there’s nothing you can do about it other than fine-tune the settings, which is what we’re here for!
The first thing to do is verify your graphics drivers is up-to-date. ARK: Survival Ascended is a demanding game, and if your drivers aren't updated, you'll encounter more issues. Here is where you can check for updates:
For the best AMD settings in ARK: Survival Ascended, prioritize enabling AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR), setting the in-game resolution slightly lower than your native monitor resolution, turning on AMD Anti-Lag, and adjusting other graphics settings to "Medium" or "High" depending on your hardware, with a focus on lowering settings that heavily impact performance like foliage interaction and advanced graphics, while maintaining important visual elements like global illumination at a higher setting if possible.
Key points to remember:
AMD FSR: Activate this feature in your AMD Radeon Software to upscale the game's resolution, potentially boosting FPS significantly.
Resolution Scaling: Set the in-game resolution slightly lower than your native monitor resolution to gain performance.
Anti-Lag: Enable AMD Anti-Lag in your Radeon settings for quicker response times.
Graphics Preset: Choose a "Medium" or "High" preset depending on your hardware.
Important Settings to Adjust:
Foliage Interaction: Set to "Low" or "Off" to significantly improve performance.
Advanced Graphics: Adjust based on your system, but consider lowering it to "Medium" for better FPS.
View Distance: Set to a moderate level depending on your preference and hardware
Global Illumination: Try to keep this setting at "Medium" or higher for better lighting effects.
Other considerations:
Check AMD Radeon Software: Always check the latest AMD Radeon Software settings for optimal game optimization.
Experiment with settings: Test different configurations to find the perfect balance between visual quality and performance for your system.
Monitor your GPU usage: Use the in-game FPS counter and GPU monitoring tools to see how your system is performing and identify potential bottlenecks.
BEST Nvidia settings in "ARK: Survival Ascended
For the best Nvidia settings in "ARK: Survival Ascended," prioritize enabling DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling) in "Performance" mode, turn on Nvidia Low Latency mode, and adjust in-game graphics settings to prioritize medium-range quality with lower foliage density, focusing on lowering view distance and effects quality to maximize FPS while maintaining visual fidelity; if you have a high-end PC, you can push settings higher, but always consider utilizing DLSS for the best performance boost.
Nvidia Control Panel:
Manage 3D Settings:
Program Settings: Select "ARK: Survival Ascended"
DLSS: Enable, set to "Auto" mode
Low Latency Mode: Enable
Power Management: Set to "Prefer maximum performance"
ARK In-game graphics settings to tweak:
Open the Options Screen from your ASA Lobby Screen. After altering all of these settings, remember to save them.
These are the settings I am using on my rig with a Ryzen 7 / Nvidia 4070TI
General Video Settings Panel
Experiment and fine-tune:Test different settings to find the best balance between visual quality and frame rate for your system.
Make sure your resolution is set to your monitors resolution.
Max Frame Rate should be at 60 for 4000 series cards, and 120 for 5000 series cards.
Anti Aliasing Set to DLSS unless your pc does not support it. (Toggle on Native if it does NOT support DLSS)
DLSS Quality: I use Auto for a much smoother experience but you will need to change things for your Graphics Card Series.
Vsync Mode: I use Adaptive, again change this if the graphics are not smooth enough.
General Graphics Panel
Experiment and fine-tune:Test different settings to find the best balance between visual quality and frame rate for your system.
Graphics Preset: Low (to set the hidden values to minimum levels)
Advanced Graphics: Medium
View Distance: Medium or High
Textures: High or Epic
Post Processing: Medium
General Shadows: High
Global Illumination: High
Effects Quality: Medium
Foliage Quality: Medium
Motion Blur: Off
Light Bloom: On
Light Shafts: Off
Low Light Enhancement: On
Enable Foliage & Fluid Interaction: On
Set all three Foliage Interaction settings to 1 ( this allows just a bit of foliage movement, as well as shorter grass.)
Enable Footstep Particles: These can be set either way, If your on a 3000 card or lower. Turn this OFF.
Enable Footstep Decals: These can be set either way, If your on a 3000 card or lower. Turn this OFF.
Disable HLOD: Off
GUI 3D Widget Quality: 0 (this doesn't seem to change much)
Cinematic Lighting Mode: ONLY enable if your card can Push it, And you are streaming ARK for a video.
ASA GAME OPTION Descriptions
We will now walk you through every option as many of them can impact FPS or boost/lower overall game performance: Please note that these options will not be the most optimal setup for all computers, but about 80% of them will see a huge increase in FPS from changing these settings.
Resolution – change this depending on your device and CPU/GPU, desktop computers should not have any problems running 1920×1080 but on a Laptop it’s recommended to use the 1280×768 resolution.
Window Mode– ALWAYS have this in full screen, Windowed or Windowed-Fullscreen will decrease your FPS and cause lag and/or frame tearing. Note full window is NOT compatible with alt tabbing.
Resolution Scale – lowering it down will decrease resolution but increase FPS, only lower this as a last resort if you have lag even with other settings optimized.
World Tile Buffers, View Distance, Anti-Aliasing and Post Processing – set these to medium or low depending on your computer.
General Shadows, Terrain Shadows, Ambient Lightning – configuring these to the lowest setting will provide you with a nice increase to FPS and overall performance.
Sky Quality, Ground Clutter Density, Ground Clutter Distance and Mesh Level of Detail – set these between lowest-middle, these will most certainly lower your overall FPS if you have them on max.
High-Quality Anisotropic Filtering – ON This feature creates smoother looking objects from various points of view.
Motion Blur – OFF An unimportant aesthetic.
Light Bloom – Personal Choice. Won’t affect performance. Can cause blinding bright spots.
Light Shafts – Personal Choice. It doesn’t affect performance. Can cause bright Shafts of light.
Foliage Interaction Settings - Personal Choice. Though the higher the setting the more FPS you loose to the current screen clutter.
Footstep Particles and Decals - Personal Choice. It doesn’t affect performance. Just looks cool.
These are mostly for the In Game Photo Mode so turning them off will not harm you until you want to use the Photo Mode. Then you can re-enable them.
Camera Settings
Invert Y = Off
Look Sensitivity = 27 (min setting) on both settings
Third Person Camera Offset = Off
Camera View Bob = OFF (So annoying)
Disable Third Person.... = Off
Player Camera Mode = Off
Dino Camera Mode = LOOSE
Camera FOV (Field of View) = Anything less than 50
Camera Shake Scale = 0
First Person Riding View = OFF (Personal Choice though)
Make sure to hit the SAVE button between each screen and there you go, your all set to enter the world of ARK ASCENDED. Hopefully with a good Framerate!
Important considerations:
Resolution Scale: If needed for extra performance, lower the resolution scale slightly.
Anti-Aliasing: Adjust based on preference, but lower settings can improve performance
Texture Quality: Depending on your VRAM, you might need to adjust texture quality
Other settings for improved PC performance in ARK Survival Ascended.
Step #1: Set your Launch options!
Step #2: Console Commands
Use these commands either in your Console Command Bar (Make a Cut and paste of the whole set)!
Use the presets below to help with fps/ graphics/stutters.
Go to single player or multiplayer and press the " ~ " key to open the console.
Copy and Paste the commands from below as one message to the console and apply (enter)
Now open Engine.ini in Notepad or other editor.
Scroll to the bottom and add the Header:
[ConsoleVariables]
use any of the commands shown above, but edit them so they have no space after the command and now have an =before the numeral
exp. : fx.MaxNiagaraGPUParticlesSpawnPerFrame 0
is now: fx.MaxNiagaraGPUParticlesSpawnPerFrame=0
Alternative Step #3: Adding the Console Commands via an Execute Command (For the very Brave! Requires File adjustments)
Adding the Console Commands via an Execute Command
So you can actually add a text file with all the commands, to your game install folder and leave the text file in the Binaries folder where a Win64 folder is (so the Binaries folder should have Win64 folder and your text file in it only)
To create the file:
1. Find the Preset that best fits your PC and Playstyles.
2. Use Notepad and take a blank page and place them line per line without the (|) between. Save your file as FpsBoost.txt (example)
3. Put a copy into this file:
....\common\ARK Survival Ascended\ShooterGame\Binaries
4. Save your file!
5. Also save it in your documents folder in case ASA erases it in an update!
6. Then use the console command exec <yourfilename>.txt while in ASA in the tab bar, and it will execute every command within the file.
NOTE: (file names can be what-ever you choose) So my file is called fpsboost.txt and the command looks like this: exec fpsboost.txt
After researching this topic we found some workaround that works for some users. Apply the following methods to fix the DXGI_ERROR_DEVICE_HUNG error.
Method 1: Update your Graphic Drivers
Graphic Drivers
You can start troubleshooting the DXGI_ERROR_DEVICE_HUNG error by updating your graphic drivers. Below we have mentioned steps for Nvidia and AMD drivers:
If updating the drivers does not fix your problem then you should verify the ARK Survival Ascended game files. If you don’t know how to do it then don’t worry you can do it by using the steps mentioned below.
Open Steam Client and log in with your account.
Click on Library and find the ARK Survival Ascended game.
Right-click on the game profile and select Properties.
Go to the Installed Files tab.
Click on the “Verify integrity of game files” option.
Wait
Method 3: Add Launch Parameter
Launch Parameters for Digi_Device_Hung
Go to your Steam Select Library and right-click “ARK Survival Ascended”.
Now close the Steam window, and restart your device.
If you're getting more crashes with the latest update,
Remove -useallavailablecores ,
try ONLY using -norhithread in the properties.
Method 4: Set Nvidia PhysX to Your Graphics Card
Nvidia PhysX
Some players have mentioned that they can fix this error by setting the Nvidia PhysX to their graphics card. Here is how you can do that:
Click on Windows Search Bar and search for “Nvidia Control Panel”.
On the control panel select “Configure Surround, PhysX”.
Under “Processor”, select your graphics card.
Close the Control Panel, that's it.
Method 5: Turn off Nvidia DLSS and Frame Generation
Nvidia DLSS and Frame Generation
At last, you can try turning off Nvidia DLLS and Frame Generation. Here is how you can do that:
Launch the ARK Survival Ascended game.
Go to Settings > General > RTX.
Here turn off “Nvidia DLSS” and “Frame Generation”.
Now, save the change and restart the game to check if your problem is fixed or not.
Method 6: Registry Edit
Registry Edit
Open the Windows Menu.
Type run into the search bar.
Navigate to the Graphic Drivers section of the navigation on the left side of the Registry Edit tool.
(The location for this is Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\GraphicsDrivers
The registry key you need is called TdrDelay
If this registry key already exists, double-click to edit it.
If it does not already exist, right-click in the pane on the right and select New > DWORD (32-bit) Value.
Set the Base to Decimal.
Set the Value of TdrDelay to 60.
Click OK to finish.
You need a second registry key called TdrDdiDelay
If this registry already exists, double-click to edit it.
If it does not already exist, right-click in the right hand pane and select New > DWORD (32-bit) Value to create it.
Set the Base to Decimal.
Set the Value of TdrDdiDelay to 60.
Click OK to finish.
Your registry should now include both TdrDelay and TdrDdiDelay.
Close the Registry Editor.
Restart your computer for these changes to take effect.
By adding these registry keys, Windows will now wait for 60 seconds prior to determining that the application has taken too long for its process.
Although this is a good way to curb GPU crashes based on rendering, this will not resolve all crashes. If you try to process too much data at once, the GPU may time out regardless of how long you set the timeout delay. This solution is only designed to give your graphics card a little extra time.
Failure to Load Content or the Boolean Overload
Failure to Load Content
Is caused by slow connection, or too many mods downloading.
If you are a high level character, use a mindwipe before transfer. This reduces the engrams to relearn on the new map.
If mods do not complete in the 120 second time frame for connection. You can change that in settings>advanced but longest time is 3 mins.
Too Many Mods subscribed. When your client must check and update more than 10-15 mods it slows your connection times down. Which often exceeds the 120 sec. Limit. (See section above)
Recent changes in Custom Cosmetics This change creates a bulk of info in your client, which slows connection times. ASA automaticly subs you to any cosmetics you see in game. But you do not see them in the download panel. To find them, go to game open Mods panel, > my mods (top of page) and scroll though mods there. Any you see without the blue banner are dynamic downloads. You have to fully install it then uninstall it to get rid of it. Or just delete your mods file monthly and re-download your chosen mods. Instructions below 👇
Boolean Overload
The crash is related to the game processing Boolean variables which are not synching properly. Most often this is caused by added cosmetic mods to the client (your pc not the server). Also, check at the bottom of the inventory screen, there's a small menu, choose " all items " This may be the culprit in many complaints.
Work Arounds
In pregame Settings under UI Disable Menu Transitions. (restart game after)
In pregame Settings. Disable Give Default Survivor Items
Ingame, only access inventory when in 3rd person.
Ingame, place two or more beds in your base and name them. Now Fasttravel from bed #1 to bed #2. Run back over and look for your bag by the first bed, and recover those things you definitely want! Leave the skins and such to decay.
Harvest a handful of berries and log out of game & steam When you log back in, you have berries and all missing things
Suicide, chop up your body and get the bag, all items will be in it.
Transfer your whole inventory (including your cosmetics panel items) into a box. Log out of game and restart ARK. Log back in, you have all the missing things.
Empty all items out of your cosmetics panel.
It has to be done with the cursor and "t" key. No transfer all button. Things that can be dyed or have skins will show up in the left panel. Dyes and skins show up in the right panel. Dye has weight . As does the tools and gear. Skins take up slots. Which can slot cap you.
Nanite setting that helps with the GlitchLaunch Param - -ark.VertexCountScaling 1
Command Prompt - ark.VertexCountScaling 1
Go to single player or multiplayer and press the " ~ " key to open the console.
Copy and Paste the command as one message to the console and apply (enter)
With in your gameusersetting.ini - ark.VertexCountScaling=1
File to put them in: ....\shootergame\saved\config\windows\enigine.ini use header [ConsoleVariables] at the bottom of the engine.ini and then single line put your commands.
Delete your mod Folder.
Close ARK and Steam. Follow : ...\...\steamapps\common\ARK Survival Ascended\ShooterGame\Binaries\Win64\ShooterGame\Mods Delete the MODS folder. Then empty your trash. Restart Steam and then ARK. Log into a server and wait for all the current mods to down load. Do not add any other mods or custom cosmetics for now. Do this after you have confirmed you can enter the server first and that you are able to see your inventory.
Frequent Login Issues on all Servers
Frequent Login Issues on all Servers
So the cosmetic tab issues are back with Extinction. Even though WC thought they fixed it.
When you log in and have 2 implants and are black weighed, Commit Suicide, respawning your character often fixes this.
When you log in and you are tribeless and no base, LOG OUT IMMEDIATELY! And then relog in.
When you log in and you are unable to interact with your base. LOG OUT IMMEDIATELY! And then relog in.
If you crash with a Boolean error, LOG OUT IMMEDIATELY!
Go to the cosmetic panel and empty all your cosmetics and Chibis in the first right side panel into a vault. And then relog in. (The second right side panel is your subscribed cosmetics.) I would suggest you reduce your cosmetic subscriptions to three mod packs or less. And then reverify your game.
Character Loss and Deletion.
Character Loss and Deletion.
The majority of the character deletion is caused by the player client crashing and reloading an outdated server player save.
If you left map 1 and uploaded to the ark data, and map 1 saved when you did this, then as far as map 1 is concerned, you're not there (the outdated Server save).
Then you download into map 2, removing you from the ark data, but your player client crashes, and map 2 hasn't saved since you arrived.
Then when you load back in onto map 2, it loads the last save for map 2 in which you don't exist.
So now your character doesn't exist on map 1,or 2. The Game prompts you to create a new character.
We often tell the players to Go back to map 1 and they should find their character. Not always now in ASA. The .savefile that is used in Data transfers is inaccessible to server owners. So we can not parse the data in the Server saves and find the specific player transfer .savefile.
Preventative tips:
Make sure you stay on the map for at least 15 minutes before logging on/off.
Doing "something to progress" can be as small as picking up berries from a bush to beating a boss.
Do Not Alt+tab during transfers or you will crash and potentially lose your .savefile
If you are crashing a lot, it might be smart to lower your settings to help prevent character loss.
Make sure you stay on the map for at least 15 minutes before logging on/off.
Doing "something to progress" can be as small as picking up berries from a bush to beating a boss.
Do Not Alt+tab during transfers or you will crash and potentially lose your .savefile
Verify after EVERY crash.
If you are crashing a lot, it might be smart to lower your settings to help prevent character loss.
CAMERA SETTINGS
Setting ASA Launch Options!
You can squeeze more performance or fidelity out of ASA by using some command options. Add them to the game using the various game launchers and platforms:
On Steam, go to your library, right-click on ARK: SA and, select Properties and click on Set Launch Options.
Here’s a list of the best ones you can and should use:
-high -lowmemory -sm4 -d3d11 -nomansky -window (-w 1860 -h 980 set this to your prefered window size)
On Epic, click the little Settings cog under ARK:SA to open the settings. Scroll all the way down until you see Advanced Command Line Arguments.
Many Console Commands can function as a launch option by adding a "-" in front of the console command, but some cannot be used in this fashion. The most common launch options are listed below.
Here’s a list of the most popular launch options:
-autoconfig - Restores video and performance settings to default for the current hardware detected. Ignores settings inside any .cfg files until this parameter is removed.
-dev - Enables developer mode. Also disables the automatic loading of menu background maps and stops the quit dialog from appearing on exit.
-condebug - Logs all console output into the console.log text file.
-console - Starts the game with the developer console enabled.
-toconsole - Starts the engine directly in the console, unless a map is specified with +map.
-dxlevel [level] - Forces a specific DirectX version when launching the game. This is useful if your graphics hardware is older, and gets significantly better performance in an earlier version of DirectX. Below are the most common modes used:
-dx12
-dx11
-dx10
Warning: Steam games no longer support DirectX 7 as a launch option. Using this can cause crashes. If you are using -dx7 make sure to remove it from your launch options.
-fullscreen - Forces the engine to start in fullscreen mode.
-windowed or -sw - Forces the engine to start in windowed mode.
-16bpp or -32bpp - Forces the selected color mode (bit depth).
-w [width] - Forces the engine to start with resolution set to [width].
-h [height] - Forces the engine to start with resolution set to [height]. This launch option does not need to be set in the presence of -w. The width value will determine the height automatically.
-refresh [rate] - Force a specific refresh rate.
-heapsize [kilobytes] - Specifies the heapsize (in kilobytes) which the game will use.
-nocrashdialog - Suppresses some memory could not be read unhandled errors.
-novid or -novideo - When loading a game with this parameter, the intro Valve video will not play.
-Sm4: Forces a simpler shade model that lowers the graphical fidelity. In our tests, this improved the frame rate by about 25%, but it also made the game look significantly worse. This command also weakens the lighting effect of torches and other elements in the game. Use this only if you have no choice, and use it along with the d3d10 switch below.
-d3d10: Forces the game to use DirectX 10 instead of 11 to boost performance at the cost of graphics.
-high: Forces high CPU priority, which might give you extra FPS. However, as discussed in this article, Ark isn’t a CPU-bound game, so unless you’re running tons of background applications, this command won’t do much. But it doesn’t hurt to have it on!
-nomanssky:Removes sky details, which will make the heavens look quite bland while possibly squeezing out more FPS. In our tests, this gave us a boost of 1–2 FPS, but we’re running it on a higher-end PC. Your mileage may vary.
-lowmemory: Lowers a few settings to make the game run on PCs with “only” 4 GB of RAM.
-nojoy: Switching off joysticks, joystick support.
-console: The option will force console opening once the game is started
Launch Options to Adjust Detail Levels and Graphic Rendering
+r_rootlod # - Adjusts Model Detail where # is 0 for high, 1 is medium, and 2 for low
+mat_picmip # - Adjusts Texture Detail where # is 0 for high, 1 is medium, and 2 for low
+mat_reducefillrate # - Adjusts Shader Detail where # is 0 for high and 1 for low
+r_waterforceexpensive # - Adjusts Water Detail where # is 0 for low and 1 for high
+r_waterforcereflectentities # - Adjusts Water Reflectiveness where # is 0 for low and 1 for high
+r_shadowrendertotexture # - Adjusts Shadow Detail where # is 0 for low and 1 for high
+mat_colorcorrection # - Adjusts Color Correction where # is 0 for low and 1 for high
Filtering Modes:
+mat_trilinear 0 - Use Bilinear Mode (least system-intensive)
+mat_trilinear 1 - Use Trilinear Mode (more system-intensive)
+mat_forceaniso # - Use Trilinear Mode (where # is 2, 4, 8, or 16 - higher levels of filtering require more system resources)
+mat_hdr_level # - Adjusts High Dynamic Range lighting effects where # is 0 for "off" (requires least resources) and 2 for "full"
